Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition: Review Roundup

With the PC version just being released here is a roundup of review for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, including a first impression of the iPad version.TochGen (iPad first impression)

The controls of Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition work really well with a simple tap to move scheme. There are a lot of on screen inventory buttons that make the HUD a bit cluttered. Still I have had no issues running the game on my iPad Mini when it comes to power, or screen estate.

Baldur’s Gate was a near-perfect game, and the Enhanced Edition has most of the rougher edges polished. As a standalone title, you’d be foolish to miss it. But it isn’t a standalone title, and I can’t pretend it is. By itself it is much better than the original – and it is the best commercially available Baldur’s Gate – but compared to the entire series with mods added, it is a slightly inferior product. For now.
I don’t want to leave this review on a sour note. What the Overhaul team have achieved is wondrous, and nothing can take that away from them. Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition is the same game I love. I just wanted more from it than I got.

So has it aged like a fine wine or repulsive vinegar? More or less, fine wine (although I smelled a hint of vinegar being poured into my goblet). BG:EE proves that Baldur’s Gate is one of the milestones in RPG gaming, and acts as a reminder that even in their infancy, Bioware knew what made a game great. While it hasn’t aged very well in some aspects, the pros still heavily outweigh the cons in BG:EE. Plus, you can play with friends no matter which device they are using, and personally, that alone is worth the cost of admission. Now if only Blizzard would take this same approach with the original Diablo….

If you have Baldur’s Gate already, then you’ll likely already have an idea as to whether or not you’re going to buy this. I’d argue it’s worth it simply for the simplicity of getting everything working nicely without having to dick about with Tutu, and the additional content and fixes are icing on the cake, but that’s me; perhaps, for the $20 asking price, you want a bit more to pull you away from the original versions. If you’re a newcomer with no knowledge of AD&D’s arcane inner workings, then consider whether or not you’re willing to put a few hours into trying – and initially failing – to penetrate its mysterious rules before spending a lot of hours exploring this world. If so, then you shouldn’t hesitate. Go buy.

After playing Baldur's Gate for several days I have still not seen everything. The game is huge and every inch is more interesting than the last. I have to say it's about damn time someone truly captured the essence of AD&D in a computer game. Bioware has done it, and with the promise of further expansions (read: modules!) for this masterpiece, Baldur's Gate will keep you going for a long time coming. Just remember to eat and bathe, fanboys.

In the end, though, the game is still Baldur's Gate—a great RPG with new content and characters that hold true to the spirit and style of the original. The game is what the name implies: a truly enhanced version of a classic game.

Yes, I couldn't run it at all on the first PC I tried (Win 8 laptop), but it runs just fine on the 2nd one I tried (Win 7 laptop). Then again, it was the same situation when trying Command & Conquer recently on the same computers, so I wasn't overly surprised. I'll try at least one of my desktops this weekend (traveling at the moment).

I'm ashamed to say that I haven't played the original BG yet. I had it, but it didn't run on my windows 7 and I got busy with other games. Now that the game is out, can someone say if this is identical to the original game or not? I mean voice acting, characters, item descriptions, etc. Is there anything that has changed from the original BG, even a little bit? Can I play this and automatically assume that I have played Baldur's gates?

Originally Posted by Frozen Fireball
Is there anything that has changed from the original BG, even a little bit? Can I play this and automatically assume that I have played Baldur's gates?

Content haven't changed except for the additional companions and area (which were not in the original). For the rest it's like playing BG Tutu (BG1 in BG2 engine) with remastered music/sound, improved UI and bug fixes.

I think I'm going to wait until these early bugs are ironed out before I lay down the money for this one. Also, making the Sword Coast Strategems mod compatible with the EE is likely to take the author a month or so; I'd rather wait a little and get a better experience with fewer bugs and more cool mods.

Crapload of empty chests? In the original it's definetly not like that.
In original, game data for every chest has a specific item inside or item placeholder named RANDOMXY. Based on xy value, the game would randomly grant an item from a side table (IIRC the table for random01 contained only the worst possible weapons, so by opening a chest with it, you'd get a pole or a knife or something, etc). Totally empty chests were rare.

Originally Posted by joxer
Crapload of empty chests? In the original it's definetly not like that.
In original, game data for every chest has a specific item inside or item placeholder named RANDOMXY. Based on xy value, the game would randomly grant an item from a side table (IIRC the table for random01 contained only the worst possible weapons, so by opening a chest with it, you'd get a pole or a knife or something, etc). Totally empty chests were rare.

In my original BG game, Candlekeep chests and barrels were mostly empty. Everything was where I remembered it was when I did that section last night. Same objects, same amount of coins. sakichop played for an hour, after Candlekeep there isn't a lot of chest or barrels to check until Friendly Arm/Naskel (if you go that way).

The only thing I wasn't able to check was the sapphire gem in the inn, despite having a fighter with 18/95 strength I couldn't force the lock.

Originally Posted by azarhal
In my original BG game, Candlekeep chests and barrels were mostly empty. Everything was where I remembered it was when I did that section last night. Same objects, same amount of coins. sakichop played for an hour, after Candlekeep there isn't a lot of chest or barrels to check until Friendly Arm/Naskel (if you go that way).

Glad to hear that I couldn't remember if that was normal or not.

Can you still play single player in multi player mode so you have the ability to create your whole party.

There is a zoom. It does work well enough (a little pixely but that was to be expected) but it's implemented somewhat half-assed. The mouse wheel zooms, which implies that the middle button should be usable to scroll the map around. But it's not. So you'll be zooming with the wheel and struggling with the arrow keys to move things around. About as unintuitive as it gets.

Didn't work for me using the standalone installer, but then I used the beamdog client and that worked ok. The game looks good, but I'm getting graphical glitches - eg, title screen flickers, and when I go from a large map to a smaller map the sections of the larger map remain there like a frame. Zoom works ok, but I'm getting some glitches with that as well. It's not game breaking stuff but its distracting (and annoying!). I'm still looking forward to spending some time with this, but I'm going to hold off for a few more patches before getting stuck in.

I really have no interest in playing BG again, even though I loved it at the time. Looking at the Kotaku snip above, though, surely that must be from some original review of the game? "about damn time someone captured the essence of AD&D in a computer game"? "Bioware has done it again"?! Um, it can't be THAT different…